Books-A-Million reported third quarter results Tuesday afternoon, and for the fourth straight quarter sales rose — thanks to the dozens of stores they added after Borders closed — but same-store sales continued their pattern of declines as well, down 3.6 percent. Sales of $104.7 million were up 11 percent compared to a year ago, and their net loss of $2.8 million for the quarter was an improvement from the $3.8 million in losses a year earlier. BAMM ceo and president Terence Finley said the third quarter results “reflect stabilization in our core book business and improvements in our toys & […]
Archives for November 2012
Nook Adds Beta Text-to-Speech Feature; Penguin Library eBooks Sold At Consumer Price
Though not an advertised feature, Nook appears to have added text-to-speech “read aloud” capability for all ebooks in its latest releases. The National Federation for the Blind posted about the “beta” feature–which appears as an “accessibility” setting–last week: “We selected enable accessibility (beta) which will actually provide speech to read Nook books. That’s quite momentous, and would be even better if it were documented somewhere we could find it, or if any of the customer service reps knew about it. Still–it’s more than we’ve seen previously.” In August, the California Public Library Authority reached a settlement with the NFB over […]
People, Etc.
Rodale Books publisher Steve Perrine is leaving the company after more than 20 years along with Men’s Health editor-in-chief and general manager of Rodale Books and the Healthy Living Group Dave Zinczenko. The NY Post reports the two men “are said to be teaming up on a new venture” while ceo Maria Rodale told the paper Zinczenko’s departure “was a mutual decision, but we initiated the discussion.” Former literary agent at ICM Kate Lee has joined online publishing platform startup Medium as director of content in New York, where she will “be building a small team to help her.” They […]
Tolkien Estate and Harper Sue Filmmakers for Overstepping Merchandising Agreements
In a lawsuit reminiscent of some publishing disputes over contracts from decades ago, on Monday the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins have sued Warner Bros., New Line and the Saul Zaentz Company for allegedly overreaching in their licensing of merchandising rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The suit argues that the original grant of merchandising rights in 1969 (as further amended in 1975 and again in 1981) covered only “all articles of tangible personal property”–and thus “did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights.” They allege that the filmmakers have “with increasing […]
eNews: Penguin Expands eBook Library Lending Pilot with Baker & Taylor; Sourcebook’s “Put Me In The Story” Children’s Book App
Penguin is expanding its library ebook lending pilot programs through a new distribution agreement with Baker & Taylor that will make their titles available to public libraries in Los Angeles County and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the NYT reports. Penguin tells us they “hope it is up and running before the end of the year.” The new initiative will employ the same lending terms as Penguin’s pilot with 3M and the New York public libraries from earlier this year: Titles are available for library lending six months after publication, sold at standard ebook prices, available for one-lend-at-a-time, with each purchase valid […]
Cengage Bondholders See Company Headed for Possible Restructuring
Regular readers know we have been consistently skeptical that Cengage can get out from under their gigantic debt load of almost $5.5 billion without a restructuring of those obligations, despite the company’s pretense that things are fine and they are on their way to a possible IPO. And those prospects worsened still with “very disappointing” results for the quarter ending September 30 that has operating income below quarterly debt service payments. After that earnings report Moody’s downgraded Cengage’s debt yet again, and now Bloomberg tells investors the darker side of the story: “Bondholders of Cengage Learning may recover as little […]